TIME October 9, 2017
that decision. Nour, like Taimaa, gave
birth to her daughter while living in a
Greek refugee camp. But she and her hus-
band Yousef Alarsan were lucky enough to
win the equivalent of the refugee lottery:
relocation to Germany. This year, for the
first time since the Syrian war split them
apart nearly five years ago, the young cou-
ple was able to reunite with close family
members over an ‘Id meal at a cousin’s
apartment in Gelsenkirchen, near Essen.
It was a scene of familial chaos familiar
to anyone who has been to a big Thanks-
giving dinner. Doting aunts passed babies
from lap to lap as a gaggle of toddlers tore
through the crowded living room, pausing
only to swipe Syrian sweets from a cof-
fee table. A popular Arabic music video
played on the large-screen TV. Nour sur-
veyed the scene with a wide smile. “This
is the reason why all the refugees want
to come to Germany,” she said over the
din. “Because so many of our people are
already here.”
But as the numbers of refugees have
grown, so has Germany’s anti-immigrant
sentiment. Some of Nour’s relations say
they are frequently harassed for wearing
their headscarves in public. There have
been cases reported in the media of Ger-
man doctors refusing to treat refugees
and of teachers who won’t accept Syrian
children. Overall, hate crimes against ref-
ugees have trebled since 2015, according
to Anetta Kahane, chair of the Amadeu
Antonio Foundation, a civil-society orga-
nization that tracks hate crimes and intol-
erance in Germany.
In the run-up to the September elec-
tions, far-right parties like the AfD used
anti-Muslim rhetoric to rally support. One
campaign poster featured a pair of scant-
ily clad women with the slogan BURQAS?
WE PREFER BIKINIS. It was clear that the
campaign was designed to provoke a re-
action as much as it was to gain votes: the
posters were most prevalent in heavily mi-
grant neighborhoods, hardly the AfD’s tar-
get population.
Two weeks before the elections,
a gathering of neo-fascist and white-
supremacist groups held a protest in
Berlin. About 500 black-clad neo-Nazis,
pierced and tattooed punks, flag-waving
middle-aged white men and older couples
marched past Parliament. The event’s
theme was “Merkel Must Go,” but
the anti-immigrant subtext was clear.
Speakers urged the crowd in English to
“make Germany great again” by sending
immigrants “back to where they came
from.” One man held a placard with a
photo of a blond toddler surrounded by
black children, captioned GERMANY IN- He refused to be interviewed or
photographed, calling TIME’s journalists
“Lügenpresse,” a Nazi-era epithet used to
denounce the media.
Although the AfD tries to distance it-
self from such groups, the party’s appear-
ance on the national stage is likely to em-
bolden similar demonstrations, now that
these groups feel their causes have an ear
in Parliament. Political analysts caution
that while they may be loud, their num-
bers are still small—especially when
compared with the 9 million Germans in-
volved in donation, volunteer or NGO ef-
forts to help refugees, according to a re-
port from the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development. Still, a
pro-refugee counterrally held the same
day in Berlin saw a far smaller turnout,
and there are other indications that the
country as a whole is shifting its opinion
on the newcomers. In one recent survey,
more than half the respondents said ref-
ugee children should not immediately
receive the same opportunities as Ger-
man children.
The opportunities for refugees are
not as commonplace as the far right—
or the refugees themselves—might
assume. Employers in the health care,
transport and hospitality industries are
desperate for workers to take the jobs
that few Germans want, but stringent
language requirements mean that most
refugees must spend up to a year studying
before they can even start looking for
employment. According to the Federal
Employment Agency, only 9% of the
newly arrived refugees have found jobs.
Barbara John of the social-welfare or-
ganization Der Paritätische, which runs
job fairs for refugees, agrees that learning
‘I SUFFERED ALL
THIS TO GET TO
GERMANY. THAT
WAS MY GOAL.’Taimaa Abazli celebrates the first
birthday of her daughter Heln in a
refugee camp in Kusel, Germany,
on Sept. 13; she and her husband
Mohannad were denied asylum in
Germany but are appealing the rulingGerman is vital. But she believes that the
focus on courses is a barrier to employ-
ment and refugee integration. Learning
on the job could be just as effective, John
argues, and it would help counter far-
right rhetoric that refugees come to Ger-
many only to take advantage of the wel-
fare system. “They don’t come here for
the welfare state, but by stopping them